


Tea in a Padded Cell

by professionalcynic



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Armchair tenancy, Coping i guess, Hobnobs, Mind Palace, Other, Post-The Final Problem, Sheriarty if you feel like it or not if you don't, Talking to yourself mostly, Tea, That's sherlock obviously sherlock is talking to himself, The Final Problem
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-16
Updated: 2017-01-16
Packaged: 2018-09-17 22:15:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9348737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/professionalcynic/pseuds/professionalcynic
Summary: A conversation in the wake of revelation- one of many between equals.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I have a lot of Thoughts and Feelings about TFP, none of which are accurately expressed by this thing because I have been awake for far too long and let Jim get out of hand. Written in one sitting and just finished, first fic up here so be gentle to me if you're so inclined, but also if there are tense inconsistencies in verbs that don't make sense please let me know because that's apparently a problem that I had in this for a while, though I think I fixed them all.

A corridor, a room, a boy who was once a dog, who recalls memories and torments that bring tears to the eyes. Memories restructured, a wing installed to accommodate people that had long since been evicted from the palace. A door into a flat that used to be a padded cell. A lunatic, barefoot, stripped of his straightjacket, boiling water for tea.

“Don’t linger at the door Sherlock, you’re letting in a draft.”

Sherlock steps fully into the flat in his dressing gown. The prison-like door swings shut behind him, and its locks do themselves up again.

“There can’t be a draft, there’s no wind- there’s not even really air here.”

Jim Moriarty sticks his head out of the small kitchen and graces him with an unimpressed look: what could have been a scowl if not tempered by familiarity.

“Smart boy, I bet you aced physics.” He disappears back into the other room and calls back in a chipper falsetto. “Sit down, stay a while, make yourself at home.” His voice drops back into its normal register and lilting cadence. “I don’t suppose you’re hungry for once in your life.”

The corner of Sherlock’s mouth twitches up briefly and he hums a response as he slides liquidly into his armchair. “Smart boy,” he gibes. “Obviously even if I was I wouldn’t eat here, yet you still ask me that every time I come. Why?”

“You know why, Sherly dear.” Jim emerges from the kitchen and sets a cup of tea in front of him. “Someday you might change your mind.”

Sherlock hums again, this time frowning a bit, and looks at his tea. Jim raises his eyebrows and puts a hand to his chest, the sleeves of his robe slightly too long for his arms and flopping over his fingers.

“Sherly you look like you’ve been hit by a bus, what happened?” He throws himself onto the sofa and grins widely.

Narrowing his eyes, Sherlock looks up at him and deflects. “Why are you sleeping out here?” He glances judgmentally at the sofa, a blanket bundled to the side, cushions deformed in a way obviously slept on rather than just sat upon. Jim’s disheveled hair and relaxed attire, loose clothes and robe wrinkled and tousled. “You don’t really seem like the napping type.”

Jim levels what could have been a withering stare at him- if Sherlock had been in the slightest susceptible to being intimidated by the small, evidently sleepy man. As it is, he is not. He quirks up an eyebrow in response. Jim abandons the glare and sniffs disparagingly.

“I’m an unpredictable man, Sherlock. You don’t know as much about me as you like to pretend.” He swings his legs up abruptly onto the coffee table and leans back with a smile. “Anyway, how could I get any sleep at all what with all the _renovations_ going on lately?” He pronounces “ _renovations_ ” with great relish, drawing out each of the sibilant consonants. “Don’t you want to let little Jimmy in on the big secret?” He bats his eyelashes coyly and chuckles.

“You already know,” Sherlock shoots back, watching the steam coil up from his cup of tea and dissipate in the nonexistent air.

“Of course I do,” Jim sings, rolling his head to one side. His voice drops to a whisper. “I want to hear it from you.” He watches Sherlock with an almost uncharacteristic gentleness, laced as it is with the gaze of a predator. His counterpart stays silent too long, and he rises, cracking his neck.  “Well if we’re going to have _this_ conversation, I’m going to eat something.” He vanishes back into the kitchen, and Sherlock hears the deliberate, overloud slamming of cupboards.

Sherlock glances up as he turns the corner and leans his head back against his chair. It is _his_ chair; in the same way that John has a chair in 221b Sherlock has his chair here, in another flat, so familiar and yet always surprisingly foreign. By now, he has anticipated the inevitable changes to this room, to this flat, yet they never cease to perplex him. He’s not keen on looking too closely into the reasons for which a place- a person- inside his mind would go on as if they were alive without his own conscious presence. It’s possible, of course, that his own subconscious generates a varied appearance of the place upon his entry; he can never quite suppress the feeling, though, that Jim carries on here in his absence, that he goes about some semblance of a daily life, even without Sherlock’s deliberate observation. _Heisenberg_ , he thinks. The position and velocity of an object cannot both be measured, exactly, at the same time. The closer you come, the farther away you are. He blinks and glances about the room.

There’s a bowl of apples on the mantle of a fireplace that’s never lit. An upright piano in the corner- no sheet music in sight. A pair of bookshelves filled with classics- 19th century Russians; dense books on maths and biology and astronomy that have had sections blacked out and rewritten, large chunks of pages torn out, mocking annotations scrawled in the margins; a shelf of sickening paperback thrillers and police fictions. A bookend shaped like an old brigantine. The model of ship changes. Last time, it was an English galley. Windows with pale drapes that are always closed, and which wouldn’t let in any light or look out onto any street even if they were opened. An iphone on an otherwise pristine desk, which gets no service but which seems to connect to the internet nonetheless. A record collection and an antique player- he’s examined them before but they always seem to have been put away in the wrong sleeves. He’s not sure what that means: what that says about Jim, or about himself. A tube map of Berlin on one wall; an oil painting of old London on another. The topographical map of the Middle East, held up by pink thumbtacks. It’s tidy, today. Sometimes there’s a blanket of papers and so forth on every surface. Sherlock knows that there’s a chest, somewhere here, with a padlock and a straightjacket. He hasn’t asked about it since it came off, but he knows it’s here and that’s what counts. There aren’t that many places in his own mind that Jim could hide something from him, after all; not places he couldn’t find, at least. _Perhaps_ , a part of himself supplies, _in lieu of recent events he should not be so certain of that_ ; but that’s another unpleasant self-reflection that will wait until another moment. He picks up his tea and inhales. Earl Grey.

There’s a startling clatter in the kitchen, which with another person in another place would have at least mildly concerned Sherlock. Being that neither of those conditions are met, though, he remains unperturbed. Jim pads out of the kitchen a moment later with a pack of Hobnobs and half of a bottle of red wine.

“It took you that long to return with that?” Sherlock accuses emptily.

“It took you that long to quit sulking?” mocks Jim, resuming his seat on the sofa and taking a long drink straight from the bottle. “You wanted to talk about Eurus.”

“It could-“

“Ohhhhh,” Jim rolls his eyes and bites into a Hobnob, “don’t give me that look.” He pulls a face and raises the pitch of his voice, mimicking Sherlock’s accent; “You don’t know that for certain, Jim. Someday I might surprise you, Jim. Maybe it’s just a social call, Jim. I might eventually stop being so _horribly predictable, Jim_.” His voice, on the last few words, switches back into its customary pitch and accent, and his next words are low and smirking, delivered with a grin full of teeth from beneath heavy, dark eyes. “But you won’t- not ever, because _I am you_ and you are me, and everything _you_ know, I know. You think you know me but you never have, not really, not more than I’ve let you. You never will. But me-“ He bites into the biscuit again, continuing to speak around it as he chews and swallows. “-I know you. I _am_ you. I’m a part of your head, Sherlock. Nothing you do can surprise me because I know that you’re going to do it before you know it yourself.” He folds his legs up under him and swaps the bottle of wine for his own, now-tepid cup of tea. “Funny, isn’t it?”

“So,” he begins again, menace gone, smiling knowingly, almost flirtatiously at Sherlock. “What’s the news, Sherly? How is your darling sister?”

Sherlock takes a sip of his tea and tastes jasmine. It’s cold, while in his hands the cup is still warm with fading heat. He doesn't recall having a cup of tea when he sat down in Baker Street to have this conversation with himself. It’s unimportant, though, and stranger things have happened while he’s been paying attention to more interesting, important things. He takes another sip. Jim does not laugh, but does take a large gulp of his own tea and start on another biscuit.

“Eurus is,” and here, only in his own company, he hesitates. Many adjectives spring to mind, ranging from accurate to grave untruths: contained; well; miserable; brilliant; alone…

“Eurus is my sister. Family can be difficult.”

Jim cocks a discerning eyebrow. “Is that so,” he replies, flatly, and hands him a Hobnob when Sherlock holds out his hand. Sherlock bites into the sweet and tastes nothing. He takes another sip of jasmine tea, and smells Earl Grey.

“You met her,” Sherlock says in answer. “Five minutes unsupervised.”

Jim hums noncommittally.

“You provided her recordings.”

Jim stretches out along the sofa and flexes his ankles, balancing his teacup on his stomach.

“You knew about her before I did. Years before.”

“Well,” Jim says in a tone that means he’s about to be difficult, “if you want to be exact about it you knew her long before I ever met her.”

“You died,” Sherlock responds quickly, almost harshly, because this is himself he’s talking to, really, and there’s no good doctor nor good reason to prevent him being harsh on himself. “Was that what it was all about? How long was that in your plan? I cannot believe,” and here he sets his teacup down and stands, moving restlessly about the room, “that you’d be manipulated by her, that you’d have allowed yourself to be used that way.” He continues on as Jim interjects, watching disinterestedly.

“Are you sure we’re talking about me, here?”

“What did you talk about? Was it just to plan this, this, pageantry? What did you think would happen?”

“Everyone’s motivated by emotion, Sherlock, even her.”

“Holmes versus Holmes- a recording years old-”

“Fear, loneliness…”

“-tell you about Redbeard too?”

“…jealousy…”

“-to know that if you expected all this-”

“Boil people down to their emotions and their motivations and you can do anything to them.”

“-who did you expect to die?”

Jim looks at him, dispassionately, from his reclined position.

“Can’t you guess?”

Sherlock stares back at him, declining to answer or to voice his conclusions.

Jim looks back up at the ceiling, the hand holding the Hobnobs dangling off the sofa, a finger tapping lightly on its lid. “How many people did die, Sherlock?”

He watches Jim’s lethargy coldly. “Five.”

Jim hums in response. “And why, Sherlock? Why did these people die? No,” he continues before Sherlock can begin to respond, “it can’t have been to save people, could it? After all, who was there to save? The Governor and his wife- both dead, probably both would’ve been no matter what happened, you know it’s true- but then again, hindsight is 20/20, isn’t it, but maybe you should’ve known better, hm?” Jim turns his head to meet Sherlock’s gaze passively, but with a gradually growing smile. “Three men- condemn one and save two, only,” he tutted slightly, “it didn’t quite work out that way, did it? Taking people at their word is a dangerous business, Sherlock, especially when those people are people like us, who think we know better.” He takes the teacup off of his chest and sets it on the table, letting the pack of Hobnobs drop to the floor. “Molly Hooper,” he coos, “sweet little Molly who’s always cared so much; I know, Sherlock, I’ve seen it _up close_.” He rises like a tiger from the grass and stalks closer, holding Sherlock’s gaze unblinkingly. “For what? And if you _had_ killed one of them? Big Brother versus the loyal hound? Why? For what? To save a little girl? A plane full of people? To allow hundreds or thousands of boring, antlike Londoners to go about their inconsequential lives? Why? Who would you be saving, Sherlock? What would balance out the loss of something that you _cherish_ so _deeply_? That you _love?_ ” They’re inches apart, now, Jim’s face staring, wide-eyed, up into Sherlock’s. He reaches out a hand and brushes the curls of Sherlock’s hair away from his eyes and looks sympathetic. “None of it was real, Sherly. The only life you could hold as collateral would be the life of a woman you didn’t remember existed. You could _hate_ her.” The sympathy drops off his face with a blink, and he smiles. “But you won’t.”

“No,” Sherlock answers, finally.

“No,” Jim repeats, and pulls his hand away. “Of course you won’t. You can’t. You’re too _sentimental_. You’d do anything to be cared for, wouldn’t you? To be _loved_?” Jim pulls back a step and folds his arms, narrowing his eyes and baring his teeth. “What a little whore. You’re a slut for attention, aren’t you Sherly? Funny, one might imagine that you’d be able to have enough of it at some point.”

“Yes, I knew it would come down to Holmes versus Holmes, obviously. You seem to forget, often, that I know Mycroft too. I know exactly what makes the Ice Man tick.” He pauses for a moment, and tilts his head, giving Sherlock a searching look. “I suppose, now, you do too. Have a better idea of it than before, clearly,” he scoffs, and drops back onto the sofa again. “But, of course, that still begs the other question, doesn’t it? Did _anyone_ expect all three of you to survive? Were any of you going to? Obviously if you’d shot Doctor Watson the entire last leg of the journey would have been worthless- all that business with the well? None of that would’ve worked properly with _Mycroft_ being drowned, would it? It’s just not as _dramatic_. Not nearly as _poetic_ , for certain. Now Eurus might have expected you to shoot brother dearest but did I?” He hums again and laughs. “You’ll just have to wonder, won’t you? Come to conclusions and risk that they’re wrong, and never know the truth. I bet that rubs you the wrong way.” He shoots Sherlock a sharp look. “I am dead, after all, and ‘dead men tell no tales.’”

“Either way, though, I think I won, don’t you agree?” Sherlock stays silent, and Jim cackles and continues. “I made a promise that I never really, properly kept, didn’t I? Remember? Well I gave you a fall, all right, but Eurus was right when she said that she was my revenge- well, I wouldn’t use the word ‘revenge’ precisely. My final move, rather. Something like the queen on my board, if you will.” He crosses his legs and picks up the pack of biscuits from the floor. “I said that I’d burn the heart out of you, and I think I’ve made good on my word. Of course,” he shrugs and smiles and takes a bite of a Hobnob, “ _really_ , I would’ve won no matter which way the ending went. On the one hand, you lose brother dear, or the darling doctor, or _both_ , though one would be enough to do the trick, I think, but then on the other hand there’s _Redbeard_ \- poor little Victor. Unfortunate, wasn’t it? And either way you’re left with the one responsible, who you _can’t even bring yourself to hate for it_ , just because she’s your _blood_ and you always have to _care_ so much. Incredible. I’d put a point down in my lane for that, wouldn’t you say Sherly?”

“But here’s a _really_ juicy question, Sherlock; who would you rather have?”

“You’re going to have to expand on that question Jim, because it seems you’ve already answered a version of it and I can't imagine that you’re repeating yourself.”

Jim rolls his eyes and jerks his head at Sherlock’s chair. Sherlock sighs irately, but complies and refolds himself into his armchair. When he’s seated, Jim unfolds his own legs and scoots to the edge of the sofa, resting his arms on his knees.

“I mean, obviously; me or her? Who would you rather have? None of this ‘if you had to pick’ nonsense, no hypotheticals; I’m sure you have a preference, so, honestly: who would you rather have?”

Sherlock glances at the mantle, at a bowl of fruit that sits in the place where, on another mantle, there is a clock. He rises, and Jim rises with him.

“I think it’s time for me to be going, Jim,” he remarks definitely, and Jim’s chin rises obstinately.

“I’m a part of you, Sherlock, I know what you think. You’re looking for me in every case you take, in every hint of a problem that comes your way. Don’t think that I don’t notice it- don’t think that you can hide it from your _self_.”

“This has been an _enlightening_ conversation, as always.”

“It would be better, wouldn’t it, if I were there to gloat in person? If it had been me, the real me, alive, pulling the strings? Someone responsible for the mess that wasn’t only capable of enduring your _pity_?”

“The tea was rubbish but I can’t say that’s really any fault of yours since your tea isn’t edible to begin with.”

“Sher—lock.”

“I think I can probably find the door myself, but thanks _so much_ for your hospitality Jim, I really did have just the _best_ time-“

“Sherlock!”

Sherlock pauses as the locks undo themselves and the thick door swings open, and turns back to him. Jim looks at him from the center of the room, standing with a tilted head and an inscrutable smile.

“Before you go, just tell me one other thing? It’s simple, I promise. Just one quick question Sherlock?” He falls silent, expectant, a dangerous glint in his eyes.

“You can ask,” Sherlock concedes, the hint of a smile playing on his own lips, but is already turning to go and out the door by the time Jim finishes the question.

The heavy door bolts itself behind him. Corridors of rooms, rooms full of thoughts and memories and, sometimes, secrets. Wings full of corridors lined with rooms, old and new, some repainted and freshly tidied up. Pain and confusion, painstakingly forced into nostalgia and order. He traces a familiar path out of a renovated palace that houses, among other marvels, a boy who had been a dog, a girl who did not exist, and what was once a padded cell with an incomprehensible inmate who always disengages with the same, predictable question.

_“Do you miss me?”_


End file.
